Is Russia distorting GPS signals to protect Vladimir Putin?

Russia has a long history of GPS jamming for security reasons. A friend serving in the russian forces in Syria says that GPS accuracy in the country varies dramatically with Russian military activity in the region. About two years ago there were a series of posts about GPS distortion around Moscow center (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060590, https://money.cnn.com/2016/12/02/technology/kremlin-gps-sign...). But this happens not only in Russia, also in the US as an anti-drone measure (https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/09/26/gps-spoof...)

It happened coupla times in Moscow, around Kremlin so that for anyone around it GPS showed they were in Vnukovo (~27km away).

But since it royally fucked up navigation, throwing taxis, rental cars and general traffic into chaos, they don't seem to do it any more there.

Capability is certainly there though.

C4ADS produced a fantastic report on this. They used AIS data (the system ships use to broadcast location) to document boats that were anchor down, yet had dramatic shifts in their reported location when Putin's motorcade was nearby.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566ef8b4d8af107232d53...

Yes they are distorting GPS signals, and protecting Putin will be the tip of that iceberg